"Starting with Leonid Brezhnev in 1977, the last four General Secretaries—Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Konstantin Chernenko and Gorbachev—simultaneously served as ""de jure"" head of state during their time in office. The president was initially elected by the Congress of People's Deputies and served as ""ex officio"" chairman of that body, but all future elections were to have been by popular vote. During the election of the president several candidates were nominated, among leading contenders were KGB persona Vadim Bakatin and Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov. The Vice President of the Soviet Union was Gennady Yanayev, the only person to occupy that office. He"
"USSR and is regarded by many historians to be the closest the world came to nuclear war since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. This period of the Cold War would continue through U.S. President Reagan's first term (1981–1985), through the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1982, the brief interim period of Soviet leadership consisting of Yuri Andropov (1982–1984) and Konstantin Chernenko (1984–1985). This phase in the Cold War concluded in 1985 with the ascension of reform-minded Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev who brought a commitment to reduce tensions between the East and the West and bring about major"
"President of the Soviet Union The President of the Soviet Union (, ), officially called President of the USSR () or President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (), was the head of state of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 15 March 1990 to 25 December 1991. Mikhail Gorbachev was the only person to occupy the office. Gorbachev was also General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between March 1985 and August 1991. He derived an increasingly greater share of his power from his position as president until he finally resigned as General Secretary"
"was also the leader of the Gang of Eight which attempted the August coup, and declared himself Acting President of the Soviet Union on 19 August 1991. After three days the coup collapsed and Gorbachev was restored. He held the office up to the country's dissolution. President of the Soviet Union The President of the Soviet Union (, ), officially called President of the USSR () or President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (), was the head of state of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 15 March 1990 to 25 December 1991. Mikhail Gorbachev was the"
"Council chairman. In the 1980s, the glasnost liberalisation of Soviet society provoked KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov (1988–91) to lead the August 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev. The thwarted ""coup d'état"" ended the KGB on 6 November 1991. The KGB's main successors are the FSB (Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation) and the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service). The GRU (military intelligence) recruited the ideological agent Julian Wadleigh, who became a State Department diplomat in 1936. The NKVD's first US operation was establishing the legal residency of Boris Bazarov and the illegal residency of Iskhak Akhmerov"
"1, 1985. Martinov and Motorin, who were more junior KGB, were recalled to Moscow and executed. Yuzhin had returned to Moscow for reassignment in 1982 and was arrested in 1986. He spent six years of a 15-year sentence in Perm 35, a Siberian prison. According to one of Yuzhin's former FBI handlers, Yuzhin escaped execution because he was ""never in residency in the KGB offices"" and was able to ""convince his interrogators he knew nothing about operations and cases."" He was released on February 7, 1992 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when President Boris Yeltsin issued a general"
"nearly disastrous years of the Cold War. Leonid Brezhnev was Soviet Union's leader for 18 years from 1964 until his death in 1982. Brezhnev's health was starting to decline due to his heavy smoking and addiction to sleeping pills toward the end of his time leading the Soviet Union. When Brezhnev's health got worse, the Soviet Union started having issues because he could not run the country. Brezhnev tried to help lower nuclear tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States. In 1979, the Brezhnev and United States President Jimmy Carter signed a SALT II agreement. The agreement was"
"on 18 May 1967, as part of a Kremlin power shuffle, and Yuri Andropov became the new Chairman of the KGB. Semichastny's close friend Shelepin was also removed from any positions of influence. From 1967 until 1981 Semichastny was a Deputy Prime Minister of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, although he did not have any significant influence in the political affairs of the Republic, which was tightly controlled by Brezhnevites. In 1981 he was removed from that position as well, and retired to private life. Semichastny died in Moscow at the age of 77, on January 12, 2001, after suffering"
"had one daughter and one son. Kokov's name has been used: Valery Kokov Valery Mukhamedovich Kokov (; , October 18, 1941 – October 29, 2005) was a Russian politician of Kabardian ethnicity. Kokov was born in Tyrnyauz, Kabardino-Balkaria. He was the leader of Kabardino-Balkaria from 1990 to 2005. He was chairman of the republic's supreme Soviet from 1990 to 1991 and was elected President for the first time in 1992. He effectively neutralized opposition and was re-elected twice in landslide victories; in 1997 with 98% of the vote and in 2002 with 87% of the vote. He successfully maintained stability"
"Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician and the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999. Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. During the late 1980s, Yeltsin had been a candidate member of the Politburo, and in late 1987 tendered a letter of resignation in protest. No one had resigned from the Politburo before. This act branded Yeltsin as a rebel and led to his rise in popularity as an"
"a stroke. After U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Semichastny investigated the background of Lee Harvey Oswald, who was arrested for the murder and was himself shot dead. Oswald had spent some time in the Soviet Union but, according to Semichastny's investigations, had never worked for any Soviet intelligence agency; Semichastny's verdict, that there was definitely ""something fishy"" in the whole affair, is shared by many. Vladimir Semichastny Vladimir Yefimovich Semichastny (, January 15, 1924 – January 12, 2001) was a Soviet politician, who served as Chairman of the KGB from November 1961 to May 1967. A"
"Hero of the Soviet Union in 1985, shortly before his retirement later in 1986. From 1984 to 1989, Inauri was a member of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Aleksi Inauri Aleksi Inauri (; , ""Aleksey Nikolayevich Inauri"") (April 29 or May 12, 1908 – June 23, 1993) was a Soviet Colonel General and Georgian commander who headed the Georgian KGB (Committee for State Security) for over 30 years (1954–1986) and made it one of the most effective of the KGB's regional Soviet branches. He ended his career as a colonel general and a Hero of the Soviet Union."
"of the FCD. After 14 years in FCD Hq, he was to become chairman of the KGB in 1988. Kryuchkov joined the Soviet diplomatic service, stationed in Hungary until 1959. He then worked for the Communist Party headquarters in Ukraine for eight years before joining the KGB in 1967. In 1988 he was promoted to General of the Army rank and became KGB Chairman. In 1989–1990, he was a member of Politburo. The next and last head of FCD was born on March 24, 1935, in Moscow Leonid Shebarshin. According to published sources, the KGB included the following directorates and"
"MGB are merged into the MVD by Lavrentiy Beria. March 13, 1954: Newly independent force became the KGB, as Beria was purged and the MVD divested itself again of the functions of secret policing. After renamings and tumults, the KGB remained stable until 1991. In 1991, after the State Emergency Committee failed to overthrow Gorbachev and Yeltsin took over, General Vadim Bakatin was given instructions to dissolve the KGB. In Russia today, KGB functions are performed by the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB), and the Federal Protective Service (FSO). The GRU continues"
"strength and popularity and dismissed him in May 1999, after only eight months in office. Yeltsin then named Sergei Stepashin, who had formerly been head of the FSB (the successor agency to the KGB) and later been Interior Minister, to replace him. The Duma confirmed his appointment on the first ballot by a wide margin. Stepashin's tenure was even shorter than Primakov's. In August 1999, Yeltsin once again abruptly dismissed the government and named Vladimir Putin as his candidate to head the new government. Like Stepashin, Putin had a background in the secret police, having made his career in the"
"deliberately planned intelligence mission. In October 1988, Chebrikov retired and Mikhail Gorbachev replaced him with General Vladimir Kryuchkov Viktor Chebrikov Viktor Mikhailovich Chebrikov (; 27 April 1923 – 2 July 1999) was a Soviet public official and security administrator and head of the KGB from December 1982 to October 1988. Born in the industrial city of Dnipropetrovsk in eastern Ukraine on 27 April 1923, he finished military school in 1942 and served in World War II as a battalion commander. After the war Chebrikov wanted to continue his military career, but was refused by the prestigious Frunze Military Academy because"
"republics, for most of its history had no republican branch of the CPSU, being ruled directly by the union-wide party until 1990. Local authorities were organized likewise into party committees, local Soviets and executive committees. While the state system was nominally federal, the party was unitary. The state security police (the KGB and its predecessor agencies) played an important role in Soviet politics. It was instrumental in the Stalinist terror, but after the death of Stalin, the state security police was brought under strict party control. Under Yuri Andropov, KGB chairman in 1967–1982 and General Secretary from 1982 to 1984,"
"in less than two years. In an attempt to avoid a third short-lived leader, in 1985, the Soviets turned to the next generation and selected Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev made significant changes in the economy and party leadership, called ""perestroika"". His policy of ""glasnost"" freed public access to information after decades of heavy government censorship. Gorbachev also moved to end the Cold War. In 1988, the Soviet Union abandoned its nine-year war in Afghanistan and began to withdraw its forces. In the late 1980s, , which paved the way for Revolutions of 1989. With the tearing down of the Berlin Wall"
"arrested in 1937 and tried at the Trial of the Seventeen. He was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment. Reportedly, he was assassinated in a prison by other convicts on 21 May 1939. A post-Stalin official investigation during the Khrushchev Thaw revealed that the murder was organized by the NKVD official being ordered by Lavrenty Beria and Joseph Stalin personally.. In 1988, during perestroika, he was rehabilitated along with many other victims of the Great Purge. Grigori Sokolnikov Grigori Yakovlevich Sokolnikov (born Girsh Yankelevich Brilliant; 1888–1939) was a Russian old Bolshevik revolutionary, economist, and Soviet politician. Grigori Sokolnikov was born"
"Ivan Serov State Security General Ivan Alexandrovich Serov (; 13 August 1905 – 1 July 1990) was a prominent leader of Soviet security and intelligence agencies, head of the KGB between March 1954 and December 1958, as well as head of the GRU between 1958 and 1963. He was Deputy Commissar of the NKVD under Lavrentiy Beria, and played a major role in the political intrigues after Joseph Stalin's death. Serov helped establish a variety of secret police forces in Central and Eastern Europe after the lowering of the Iron Curtain, and played an important role in crushing the Hungarian"
"to boil over, as the Baltic republics chose to secede from the Soviet Union. On March 17, a referendum was held, in which the vast majority of participating citizens voted in favour of changing the Soviet Union into a renewed federation. In August 1991, a coup d'état attempt by members of Gorbachev's government, directed against Gorbachev and aimed at preserving the Soviet Union, instead led to the end of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. On December 25, 1991, the USSR was dissolved into 15 post-Soviet states. In June 1991, Boris Yeltsin became the first directly elected President in"
"Vitaly Yurchenko Vitaly Sergeyevich Yurchenko (; born May 2, 1936) is a former high-ranking KGB officer in the Soviet Union. After 25 years of service in the KGB, he defected to the United States during an assignment in Rome. After providing the names of two U.S. intelligence officers who were KGB agents, Yurchenko slipped from the Americans and returned to the Soviets. Although it is unclear whether his initial defection was legitimate, Yurchenko was awarded the Order of the Red Star from the Soviet government for the successful ""infiltration operation."" Upon his defection to the United States, Yurchenko identified two"
"new status. In 2015 the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center was opened in Yekaterinburg. Russian and Soviet Foreign awards Departmental awards Religious awards Titles Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician and the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999. Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. During the late 1980s, Yeltsin had been a candidate member of the Politburo, and in late 1987 tendered a letter of resignation in protest. No"
"for his role in the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ensuing economic collapse. During his career, Gorbachev attracted the admiration of some colleagues, but others came to hate him. Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (born 2 March 1931) is a Russian and formerly Soviet politician. He was the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, having been General Secretary of the governing Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. He was the country's head of state from 1988 until 1991, serving as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989,"
"the growing criticism of the Soviet Union by Western leaders, most prominently by US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The CPSU, which had wishfully interpreted the financial crisis of the 1970s as the beginning of the end of capitalism, found its country falling far behind the West in its economic development. Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982, and was succeeded by Yuri Andropov on 12 November. Andropov, a staunch anti-Stalinist, chaired the KGB during most of Brezhnev's reign. He had appointed several reformers to leading positions in the KGB, many of whom later"
"() (1933-2015), Leonid Sokov () (1941-2018), Viktor Pivovarov, Ülo Sooster, Boris Sveshnikov, Vladimir Yakovlev (1934-1998), Anatoly Zverev (1931-1986), Taron Garibyan (1940-2001), Dmitri Plavinsky (1937-2012), Lidiya Masterkova () (1927-2008), Vladimir Nemukhin (1925-2016), Eduard Steinberg, Igor Novikov, Michail Grobman, Lev Kropivnitsky (1922-1994), Valentina Kropivnitskaya () (1924-2008), Mikhail Odnoralov, Oleg Tselkov, Alexander Yulikov (b. 1943), Andrey Grositsky (1934-2017), Vasily Sitnikov, Dmitry Krasnopevtsev (1925-1995), Leonid Lamm, Igor Shelkovsky, and others. From St. Petersburg (Leningrad): Yuri Dyshlenko () (1936-1995), Evgeny Rukhin () (1943-1976), Aleksandr Arefiev () (1931-1978), Alek Rapoport () (1933-1997), Timur Novikov (1958-2002), Anatoly Basin () (b. 1936), Anatoly Belkin () (b. 1953), Yuri"
"attendance at a meal with the main character and Stalin. In 2012, his alleged personal diary from 1938 to 1953 was published in Russia. Lavrentiy Beria Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (; ; , ; 29 March [17 March old style] 1899 – 23 December 1953) was a Soviet politician, Marshal of the Soviet Union and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus (NKVD) under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and promoted to deputy premier under Stalin from 1941. He later officially joined the Politburo in 1946. Beria was the longest-lived and most influential of Stalin's"
"president were created by President Yeltsin's decrees on the basis of the relevant main directorates of the defunct KGB: Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR, the former First Main Directorate) and the Federal Agency of Government Communications and Information (FAPSI, merging the functions of the former 8th Main Directorate and 16th Main Directorate of the KGB). In January 1992, another new institution, the Ministry of Security took over domestic and border security responsibilities. Following the 1993 constitutional crisis, the Ministry of Security was reorganized on 21 December 1993 into the Federal Counter-Intelligence Service (FSK). The FSK was headed by Sergei Stepashin. Before"
"to Stalin, were approved on September 1 and were made official with the printing of the new Soviet Constitution in October 1977. During the Soviet era, Mikhalkov and his wife, Natalia Konchalovskaya sometimes worked for the KGB, for example by presenting undercover KGB staff officers to foreign diplomats, as in the case of French ambassador Dejean who was compromised by the KGB in 1950s. His younger brother Mikhail Mikhalkov was also a notable writer as well as a KGB agent. Use of the Soviet anthem, with Mikhalkov's lyrics, continued until 1991, when it was retired by President Boris Yeltsin after"
"chief Lavrentiy Beria, based on the interviews of a former Stalin body guard and circumstantial evidence. According to Yevgeniya Albats allegations, Chief of the KGB Vladimir Semichastny was among the plotters against Nikita Khrushchev in 1964. KGB chairman Yuri Andropov reportedly struggled for power with Leonid Brezhnev. The Soviet coup attempt of 1991 against Mikhail Gorbachev was organized by KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov. Gen. Viktor Barannikov, then the former State Security head, became one of the leaders of the uprising against Boris Yeltsin during the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993. The current Russian intelligence service, SVR, allegedly works to undermine"
"the body until he retired in 1966. Nikolay Shvernik Nikolay Mikhailovich Shvernik (, – 24 December 1970) was a Soviet politician and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (or President of the USSR) from 19 March 1946 until 15 March 1953. Though the titular Soviet head of state, Shvernik had, in fact, little power because the real authority lay with Joseph Stalin as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Shvernik was born in St. Petersburg and joined the Bolsheviks in 1905. In 1924 he became a People's Commissar in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist"
"are used for official visits by foreign representatives. The Presidential Administration of Ukraine, unofficially known as ""Bankova"" in reference to the street it is located on, serves as the presidential administration, advising the president in the domestic, foreign and legal matters. Since the office's establishment on 5 July 1991, there have been five presidents of Ukraine. Leonid Kravchuk was the inaugural president, serving three years from 1991 until his resignation in 1994. Leonid Kuchma was the only president to have served two consecutive terms in office. Both Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych served one term, with the latter being replaced"
"several men killed and wounded on the presidential side). The Government was known officially as the Council of People's Commissars (1917–1946), Council of Ministers (1946–1978) and Council of Ministers–Government (1978–1991). The first government was headed by Vladimir Lenin as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian SFSR and the last by Boris Yeltsin as both head of government and head of state under the title of President. The Russian SFSR was controlled by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, until the abortive 1991 August coup, which prompted President Yeltsin to suspend the recently created Communist Party"